Home-tested delicious no- fuss recipes for everyone who loves to cook and eat!

Category: Chicken

I love chicken. I can’t deny it. I’m always looking to cook it up different ways but there are sometimes you’re just not bothered to open up a book or the internets for a recipe. So this was just some invention done right!

I wrote the recipe on the fridge as I went along adding things to the marinade. Its super hassle free, its quick and easy and the best bit, it literally only uses two spoons of olive oil! Tender juicy sweet and spicy chicken with an almost burnt glaze with just the right bit of char! Pair it up with the garlic rice and I’m sure you’ll come back to this recipe again and again!

Ingredients

2 pieces Maryland chicken, skin removed

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp plus a bit extra, honey

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

Toasted black sesame seeds for garnish. You could use white too.

For the rice :

1 glass rice, soaked

3 glasses of water

1 egg, beaten

6 cloves garlic

1 chunka thick butter

Chopped green onions for garnish

I hate spending hours in the kitchen so usually my recipes have a lot of marination and just basic chucking over the pan or in the over or so. This one kinda uses both because I feel its easier to achieve that glaze over a pan rather than the oven.

Clean the skin and excess fat off the maryland chicken. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl and let sit for about ten minutes.

Cut slits in the meaty parts of the chicken and coat with marinade. Leave this for half an hour. Then flip the pieces so everything gets an even time. These pieces are big, y’all. For another half hour that is.

Preheat your oven on 190 C for ten minutes. Chuck the chicken along with the marinade in a deep heat proof dish in the oven. Let it cook for twenty minutes on 180 C and then take it out, flip it and chuck it in again. For another twenty. The best way to know if your chicken is oven cooked is to insert a knife or a fork and see if the juices run clear.

Even if there is still juice left in the dish, transfer the pieces to a pan. Brush with some extra honey and wait for it to bubble up gloriously, coating the chicken with that glaze. SAUCE IT. UP.

Thats it! Chickens ready!! Onto the rice!

Boil your three glasses of water in a pan and add the pre-soaked rice.

Boil till your rice is almost done, should have a slight bite to it. Drain it and keep it aside. ONLEY FOR A BIT.

In the same pan, melt that chunka gawjus butter. and add all the crushed garlic cloves to it. Saute this till your kitchen smells like it’ll kill all the vampires today itself. Bad jokes aside, saute the garlic till its aromatic and then add in the egg. You can also add some salt and pepper to taste but I didn’t. After your egg is mostly scrambled, plop the rice back in and mix well.

Cover and let cook for around two more minutes on a verrryy low heat. Your rice should be ready for a nibblin.

I whipped these babies up for a small little party that I had. Its the perfect party food, I kid you not. Its super easy and so filling! Seems like you made crazy crazy effort but really, all you did was just take the skin off the drumsticks. And marinated them. Lets keep it a secret, shall we? wink wink, nudge nudge.

The paprika and barbeque sauce loads up the tender meat with tons of flavor. Its gonna come atchu with a sweet and smoky punch, I tell ya. And the way I like to cook these ends up cooking the meat through without drying it and you have some auto-glaze ready for topping it off. and, I’m proud to say, this is totally my invention! Tra-la! Also, psst. THEY’RE SUPAH HEALTHY.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 kg chicken drumsticks, cleaned and skin removed

1 knob of fresh ginger, crushed

7 cloves garlic, crushed

1 heaped tsp salt

1 heaped tsp flaked red chillies

1 heaped tsp paprika

2 heaped tsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp cumin powder

3 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsp BBQ sauce

4 tbsp oil

Lemon slices and cucumber to garnish

This is so super easy that I’m slightly ashamed to write it down. That’s how easy it is.

All you have to do is, get your drumsticks cleaned, skin off. And then make teeny slits with a sharp knife in through the meat like so :

In a slightly huge bowl, the biggest you can find, mix up the rest of the ingredients to make a thick, sticky marinade.

Coat each drumstick with this marinade and rub into the meat. Make sure you’re thorough and the marinade gets in. Leave this to rest for an hour in the fridge.

Forget about your life. Go watch tv. No seriously. Take a shower. Do something. because you literally have to do nothing in this. HEH.

Take a big nonstick pan and warm it over medium heat. Now the only tip which makes this worth is that you need to cook these over a slow heat and make sure that they are spread out when you cook them. Since the marinade already includes oil, don’t put more in. If you don’t have a pan large enough, cook them in batches.

Around fifteen twenty minutes will do the trick. You’ll know when the chicken is done when the marinade reduces to a glaze and the oil separates.

Line a tray with foil and assemble the drumsticks on the tray and coat the cooked chicken with spoonfuls of glaze.

You can choose to grill this a bit so that the glaze becomes more golden or serve it like this! If you choose to grill it, don’t let it cook for more than 7 minutes under a medium grill or otherwise the chicken will dry out.

Okay everyone, leave whatever you’re doing and go make this right – i mean right now. put down the newspaper. because i swear to God this is so good. I fiddled around a recipe i found on the internet. I added quite a bit of extra ingredients so i can safely say that the recipe is mine and not lifted 😉 teehee.

The result : a tangy zesty sweet and devastatingly delicious gravy which is not too overpowering and lets the chicken dominate, perfect coupled with your favorite vegetable fried rice. You can choose any vegetables to go – this time I used baby corn, carrots and capsicum. Make sure you make enough because this gets down before you can say orange. SRSLY FELLAS.

Ingredients:

For marination:

1 kg boneless chicken

1/2 cup fresh orange juice

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp crushed garlic

For the Sauce:

2 1/2 cups chicken stock

1 1/4 cups fresh orange juice

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup vinegar

1/2 cup dark soy sauce

1 tbsp crushed minced garlic

2 tbsp hot sauce

1/2 tsp crushed ginger

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tbsp oyster sauce

2 medium carrots, cut slantwise

1 small can baby corn halved

1 green and 1 red bell pepper each

3 tbsp cornflour dissolved in bit of water to thicken

extra cornflour for dredging chicken

Oil for shallow frying (I used 1/4 cup peanut oil)

Cut the chicken into bite sized cubes and marinate it with the OJ, soy sauce and garlic for almost an hour. If you’re short on time, half an hour can work too. Meanwhile, prep your vegetables and cut them how you like. I used baby corn, capsicum and carrots in this recipe.

After the chicken has been done soaking up that orange, dredge it in cornflour and shallow fry it in batches over medium heat until cooked through and golden. Set this aside. In the same wok or pan, stir fry the vegetables and set them aside as well. Make sure you don’t over-do the stir-frying. We want fresh crisp vegetables which have a slight bite to them.

Look at those colors!

Set the vegetables aside.

In the same pan, add all the sauce ingredients and mix over medium heat. Once the liquid starts to boil, add the dissolved cornflour to thicken it to your desired consistency. I usually don’t make it too thick because it goes over rice so we want it not to be too porridge-like.

Add the chicken and vegetables back to the sauce and give it a good bubble. Serve this over piping hot boiled rice. Deliciousness!

Oh man. These noodle bowls are so immensely satisfying. The combination of the spices against the fresh crunchiness of the vegetables and the curried cream sauce is just spot on! I’m a complete fan and I know I’ll come back to this recipe over and over again. I found this in the Women’s Weekly Wok cookbook and made a few adjustments! The best part? They look as beautiful as they taste! You can almost see how rich and creamy the sauce is in the pictures!

Its great if you use hokkein noodles for this recipe because these give it that real authentic flavour and texture! If you know me, I cannot live without garlic and gasp! I didn’t use it in this! Imagine! No garlic with meat! Serve them hot and of course don’t substitute the spices for anything – On to the recipe!

Ingredients:

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground turmeric

1 kg boneless chicken, chopped into cubes

500g hokkein noodles (add more if necessary)

1 big bunch of green onions, slivered

4 tbsp peanut oil

2 large carrots, sliced

Satay Sauce:

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

1 cup coconut cream

1 cup chicken stock

5 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

4 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp lime juice

1 tsp leveled salt

Mix the cumin, coriander and turmeric in a small bowl and coat the cubed chicken until evenly distributed. Heat the peanut oil in a pan and cook the chicken in batches until golden. Remove the cooked chicken and keep aside.

Stir fry the carrot and the green onion in the same pan and add to the chicken, setting it aside.

Just showing off my knife skills heh.

Prepare the noodles according to packet instructions. Hokkein noodles are pre-cooked so you will just have to separate them by opening them into a bowl and adding hot water and separate them with a fork. Drain them and set aside.

Now combine all the sauce ingredients and mix well. In the same pan that you used earlier for the stir-frying, heat up the sauce and then transfer to the chicken and vegetables. Add noodles and mix until the glorious spiced sauce coats everything! everything!

This recipe was a mix of a recipe I found online and other things I added as I went on. Its really super easy, as long as you have the spices on hand. And the best part is, you don’t need to add any of those achari masalas you get from the store! Ah replication! Success! Don’t get daunted by the long list of ingredients though!

I’d recommend using boneless chicken for this since it will taste better like a handi, as thats what is usually served in restaurants, but you can use karahi-cut chicken as well! Turns out just as great! Spiced fragrant curry coats the chicken perfectly, just the right amount of tangy and spice! Ditch the roti and have it straight away, hot off the stove with fresh naan!

Wash and prepare chicken as you would. This is the absolute hardest step and I have to literally meditate for around ten minutes hovering around the said chicken, but the faster you get done, the easier usually the rest of the process is!

In a karahi or wok, heat up 3 tbsp of oil and add the ginger garlic paste, cumin seeds, red chilli flakes and sliced garlic. Let this sing in the oil for a bit till fragrant and drop in the chicken. Cook the chicken till its half done and then take it out on some random plate.

To the same pan, add the finely chopped onion and diced tomatoes and cook this until it changes in color. Add the tamarind, salt, red chilli powder, garam masala, coriander and black pepper to this and cook until you can see bits of oil bubbling in the corner of the pan. Add a bit of water to this if it gets too thick, you’ll know when! Now take a hand blender and blend this mixture inside of the pan so it gets smooth. We want it to cover every part of the chicken.

Once smooth, add the chicken and cook until the mix thickens. Add tiny bits of water as needed because this will start to stick to the pan once thick. We don’t want to dilute the spice, just add enough so that the mixture doesnt stick. Add bay leaves, kalonji and fennel seeds. And finally add the yoghurt. Cook until the chicken is absolutely cooked through and is almost falling apart from the bone.

Serve with fresh naan and a slivers of ginger and a few fresh leaves of mint!

This is really such a simple recipe that comes together in as little as twenty minutes! Its super healthy! I will destroy the order of the universe and call butter healthy here 😛 Try to use fresh mushrooms because this is one ingredient that really shines with the buttery garlic and becomes the star of the whole bake.

I used nothing but salt and freshly ground pepper for seasoning in combination with the garlic – you can choose to add herbs, but I feel keeping things simple here really gives all the vegetables and the mushrooms a chance to sing! I also had to add extra salt and pepper as I went along because I like a bit of a kick! On with the recipe!

Ingredients:

1 whole bulb of garlic, crushed

4 tbsp butter

1/2 kg boneless chicken

1 tsp freshly ground pepper

salt to taste (I used 1 tsp) you can use more or less if your heart so desires. But there’s extra vegetables too in here, so keep some extra for those.

1 cup chopped portobello mushrooms

1/2 cup sweet corn

1/2 cup grated carrot (1 carrot is enough)

1 small bunch of broccoli – cooked/steamed ready to use. (Just immerse the head in boiling water and take it out after 15 or so seconds and run through cold water)

For the topping:

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup chicken stock (I used store bought)

1/4 cup tasty cheese (You can use mozzarella and cheddar mixed if you like)

more salt and pepper to taste

Prep your vegetables, clean and scrub the mushrooms and cut them. Grate the carrot and cook the broccoli, separating the florets.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and brown the garlic, taking care not to burn the butter. Add the chicken and cook till the chicken is done, adding salt and pepper to it along the way.

I added half the amount with the chicken and half later, with the vegetables.

Add the vegetables to the chicken, adding more salt and pepper – tasting with each addition. Once this is done, set aside – allowing to cool.

In a separate pan, make the topping. This is a simple bechamel just with extra cheese. Melt the butter and add the flour, making a paste. Add the milk and stock, stirring continuously so that the mixture does not clump.

When the sauce has thickened, stir in the cheese.

In a deep set baking dish, set your chicken and vegetables in a layer and top with the topping. Bake this at 200 c in the oven till warmed through and topping has melted.

The cheese will start to become golden at places. and its completely okay to eye these pieces and set them out for yourself – hey you made it after all!

I served this bake with some buttered buns. ahahhaha. buttered buns. They were bagels actually, which I baked with some extra butter, You can also totally use ready made garlic bread. No judging.

My power flavor combinations : spinach, mushroom and garlic come together in this delicious creamy pasta main that is sure to get anyone raving about how awesome of a cook you are. Super easy to whip up in your kitchen and perfect for a weekday meal. Save some leftovers for your weekend movie marathons and you’ll thank your lucky stars you chanced upon this recipe and actually made it.

You can opt to make this vegetarian, its equally amazing that way. I wanted to add a bit of chicken to it, so I did. I love how the color turns out, it looks really beautiful on the plate and tastes as good!

Ingredients:

5 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp red chilli flakes

1 tbsp oil

1 chicken breast, cut into strips

190 g mushrooms, sliced (1 small can)

4 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

2 cups milk

1 cup chicken stock

120 g spinach, washed and blanched

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp crushed black pepper

1/4 tsp white pepper

1 tbsp mixed Italian herbs

1 packet fettucine pasta – boiled according to packet instructions

Start off by warming up the oil in a deep nonstick pan. Add in the garlic and chilli flakes and heat till fragrant. This really adds that extra kick later on! Add the chicken and cook until the chicken is done.

Add the mushrooms to the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Set this aside. Blend the milk and spinach together to make your super-healthy spinach based sauce. I used a hand blender but you can use a normal one.

In another pan, start off by making a white sauce (that won’t really be white because we’re going to add a ton of spinach in it! YUM!) Add butter to the pan and once melted, add the flour. Keep the heat to a medium and turn the flour about in the pan till a smooth but crumbly paste. Add the spinachy-milk and keep stirring. Add the stock and keep mixing over heat till the sauce thickens. Add the pepper, Italian herbs and salt to taste.

Take the biggest pan you can find, ahem. And start off by adding the boiled fettucine to the spinach sauce. Add the chicken and mushrooms and mix well. Ta-da! Your green super healthy pasta is done! I don’t think butter and milk are unhealthy and neither should you! Go on and indulge!

The flavor of Plum goes surprisingly well with noodles, and well, anything asian-inspired to be honest! This was an experiment that turned out ah-mazing! The sauce that is cooked first, lends an amazing flavor to both the chicken and the noodles. A healthy and balanced recipe perfect for this month!

These noodles are tangy and sweet and have that perfect plum-kick to them! If you want to substitute egg noodles, you can do so with spaghetti. But I’m told Pioneer in Lahore stocks the perfect home-made egg noodles so I’m sure you can find them, they’ll be worth the extra effort!

Ingredients:

For the sauce:

1 cup chicken stock

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp oil

2 tbsp plum sauce

1 tbsp plum jam

1/2 cup vinegar

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp hot sauce

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1/4 cup dark soy sauce

Extra:

1/2 kg chicken cut into strips

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tbsp extra soy sauce

3 tsp sugar

1 egg, whisked about

1 packet fresh Hokkien noodles – two sachets

1 capsicum, sliced thinly

1 carrot, sliced thinly

1 or 2 cups of sweet corn (I love corn so I added 1 and a 1/2)

Marinate the chicken in pepper, salt and 1 tbsp soy sauce.

Heat up a fry pan and add oil, add garlic and chilli flakes and fry until fragrant. Add all the sauce ingredients and cook until well combined. In a separate wok or pan, cook the chicken till tender.

After the chicken has cooked, add the whisked egg in the pan with the chicken and turn the heat up, cooking the egg with the chicken should crumble it. Take the chicken out and in the same pan, stir fry up the vegetables for a minute or two.

Okay now you should have three separate things, the chicken fried with the egg, the sauce and the vegetables, time to mix it all up! Add the noodles first to the sauce so they drink that glorious mix up!

Combine all the three elements and mix well over heat until well combined and heated through.

AAAAND. SERVE!

Make sure that you heat the final ingredients just before you serve because we don’t want to dry up the sauce! Healthy and delicious!

Okay so I recently tried my first burrito and I was kind of disappointed. Maybe it didn’t have that much meat in it or maybe the beans weren’t that flavorful or maybe it was just the wrong place. But I wanted to make a bake with the same ingredients. Healthy but cheesy! 😉

This is kind of perfect for Ramzan because you do want to have something healthy for Iftar but also want to feel full and have a bit of an indulgence. Its your typical burrito ingredients piled into a bake! You won’t believe how easy this is! To make it more heavy, you can choose to fry the pita in a bit of butter before layering it. I didn’t because every once a year I like to pretend I can eat healthy. eheheh.

Ingredients:

1/2 kg chicken cut into small cubes

1 tsp minced garlic

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp oil

2 cups shredded lettuce

1 tomato cubed

1/2 a can of sweet corn

1 can of mixed beans

Around 12 sliced jalapenos

1/4 cup olives, sliced

8 pita breads, quartered

4 tbsp ketchup

4 tbsp barbeque sauce

2 cups grated tasty cheese

1/2 tsp mixed italian herbs

1 cup sour cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Butter for greasing

Start by greasing a big oven-proof dish with butter and layer half your quartered pita breads on the bottom. Heat this in the oven till the pita is crisp.

In a frying pan, heat the oil and fry the chicken with garlic and salt until done.

Smatter the mix of mixed beans, corn, olives and tomatoes onto the pita.Cover with the cubed, cooked chicken and jalapenos. Season with salt and pepper. Layer with pita again.

Brush the pita with a bit more butter and splat around the ketchup and barbeque sauce. Be liberal with it. Use more if you want to.

End with sprinkling the grated cheese and herbs. I wouldn’t call this sprinkling tbh.

Grill in the oven until the cheese is happily evenly browned, almost crisped.

Just before serving, dollop sour cream oven the baked cheese and top with shredded lettuce. Not only will this give you the illusion of eating salad, but will stop the dish from getting cold unnecessarily beforehand.

I needed a quick recipe to entertain and my sister texted me a recipe for lettuce wraps and insisted I make these. As per usual I took one look at the recipe and decided I’ll make something easier. But at the supermarket the ingredients for these cups literally called me from the shelves. I spotted the hoisin sauce in plain view, just mocking me. And a huge bunch of the freshest green lettuce at the entrance looking very hopeful and the noodles that my sister told me to use fell out from a shelf straight into my trolley. It was a sign.

These crunchy lettuce boats pack the perfect crunch, they’re fresh and packed with flavor and guilt-free. Its like a super oriental salad that feels like a meal! I didn’t really follow the recipe my sister gave me and ended up making my own version but you can’t substitute the hoisin sauce. Its what gives these boats the real flavor.

Ingredients:

1/4 kg chicken cubed into teeny tiny pieces

1 tsp chopped garlic

1 tbsp oil or more

1 tbsp oyster sauce

4 tbsp hoisin sauce

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp soy sauce

1 grated carrot

1/2 capsicum chopped

1/2 cup chopped peanuts, fried

1 packet steam fried noodles (If you can’t find these, use maggi noodles blanched in water and then fried)

I used these. They look already cooked and pretty straight for noodles.

So the first thing you need to do is heat up your oil in a large-ish pan and add the chopped garlic and chicken. Fry this mixture until the chicken is well cooked. Add oyster sauce and chilli flakes and push this around in the pan for a bit. Just to boss it around or so.

Add the chopped capsicum, grated carrot, brown sugar and hoisin sauce. Cook until well heated through and combined. We don’t want to mush up the carrot and the capsicum so don’t overdo it.

Take this mix off the pan and reserve for later. Add the noodles and fry them up in the same pan, you may need to add more oil.

Put them aside too. but don’t mix with the chicken.

Similarly, fry your peanuts and set aside. Don’t mix it in. Peanuts should be the last thing to fry – some people have nut allergies so you want to keep it separately if you’re having guests over so that they can mix it up later if they so desire.

Now just prep your lettuce onto some serving plates and trim off where needed, roughly the lettuce should be the same size so that no one gets upset. Because this is insanely delicious. I used baby lettuce because I like the taste of it over iceberg. Its more crunchier and more ‘alive’ looking. I don’t know what I mean by that but these pictures can show.

Oh I meant more green and wrinkled and beautiful I guess! ALIVE!

yummm! These were wiped out in minutes! great to try for iftaris since it tastes like a fresh bunch of yum without being heavy.